We The People

Voting in America has long been treated as a sacred right, but it is one that was neither universal nor freely granted at the nation’s founding. Initially reserved for white male landowners, the franchise was slowly and painfully expanded through centuries of struggle to include formerly enslaved people, women, and later, through civil rights legislation, many who had been systematically excluded. Each expansion of the vote was hard fought, secured through protest, sacrifice, and the perseverance of generations who believed democracy should be made more inclusive and whole.

Yet in recent decades, confidence in this foundational institution has been increasingly undermined. The contested presidential election of 2000, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court of the United States amid recounts and the now-infamous “hanging chads,” introduced a new level of public doubt about electoral legitimacy. That uncertainty deepened dramatically in 2020, when Donald Trump repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that the election had been fraudulently stolen.

Amplified through partisan media and digital platforms, such assertions have eroded trust in the electoral process itself. The result is a precarious moment in American democracy, where faith in voting, the very mechanism through which “We the People” govern, has been shaken even as its preservation remains essential to the nation’s future.

We The People by GREGORY MILLER turns attention to the individuals at the heart of the democratic process. Through portraits and observations gathered across the country, Miller’s work focuses on the people behind the ballot, asking what democracy looks like in everyday life and who continues to place faith in its promise.